Hyderabad: Government land parcels that private firms and individuals mortgaged with banks to secure loans, without taking up projects for which the land was given, have come under the scanner.
One such case is that of over five acres of land worth nearly Rs 100 crore that was allotted in the IT zone by the Telugu Desam government in 2003 to Pacific Hospitals.
The government has decided to cancel the allotment after it was found that the hospital management had mortgaged the land with Andhra Bank and borrowed Rs 22 crore in violation of land allotment norms and failed to build the super speciality hospital even after 14 years.
The issue came to light recently after Andhra Bank served notices for auctioning of this piece of land after the hospital management defaulted on repayments.
Revenue officials alerted the government and senior officials took up the issue with Andhra Bank and stopped the auction.The government told bank officials that the hospital management had no authority to mortgage the land to secure loans as the purpose of the allotment was to construct a super-specialty hospital.
The revenue officials immediately visited the land parcel to demarcate the boundaries and initiate the process to take back the property.
After this incident came to light, the state government alerted the revenue department and directed officials to review the status of land allotments that were made by the previous TD and Congress governments.
It instructed officials to lay special focus on unused lands since they are vulnerable to irregularities.
Deputy CM and revenue minister Mohd Mahmood Ali said, “Officials have been asked not to neglect the notices served by any bank for auctioning of government land to recover loans of private firms or individuals.”
Mr Mahmood Ali said officials had been asked to immediately alert the government to take action to protect these land parcels.
“They are instructed to write to banks about the government's authority to take back such lands which were mortgaged to secure loans in violation of allotment norms. We could save over '100 crore worth land in IT zone due to timely action in preventing auctioning of land.”
The government also asked banks not to give loans to private firms/ individuals on government lands that were allotted for specific purpose.
